Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Winter Jagdtigers

In this post I will show some pictures of two winter camouflage Jagdtigers for Flames of War. These Jagdtigers accompany the two green Jagdtigers I posted last week. The Jagdtigers were painted as part of a five model Jagdtiger commission. In this blog post I’ll also briefly discuss the role of Jagdtigers in Bridge at Remagen and their effect on the meta.

I did a little work on the models to make them look battered and damaged. Although the Jagdtigers had a short operational life, most of the pictures show them pretty beaten up. The huge hulls must have caught on everything when driving through cities. Most pictures show segments of missing side skirts and fenders. These models came with nice damaged fenders. I used a little putty to make the attachment a bit stronger. I added some shell craters on the glacis plate by drilling small holes into the resin and then using green stuff to make some small shell marks. The rest of the damage was done with acrylic paints, oils, and enamels. I took some step by step pictures of some of the weathering of the green Jagdtigers and I will post a short tutorial on it sometime in the next month or so.

Although I haven’t played games with the lists, the new Jagdtiger lists from Bridge at Remagen look pretty interesting. The price break for Trained and Reluctant tanks is definitely worth it for models with high front armour. The high front armour essentially negates the need to save or roll tests to bail back in most of the time. The cheap points cost with the option to auto-defend is lethal. King Tigers always seem much more effective on defense when the enemy has to drive at them. Adding this to the list for the Jagdtigers is very powerful. In addition, having breakthrough gun on the Jagdtigers means that they can also threaten guns, artillery, and infantry at range.

Thankfully I haven’t had to face the Jagdtiger Horde yet and haven’t used them myself. I think with my medium tank lists I would have to drive up and hope for side shots or hope for a mission where the defender has to move. They are definitely a tough nut to crack for many companies. It makes a nice template from heavy artillery or airplanes seem appealing if you can get it.

Will these new Jagdtiger lists affect the meta much? In our tournament area that majority of players are limited by the lists and models they have. We don’t see as much of people building new lists with each new release. Infantry companies are popular and running a medium tank list may be more challenging with the increase in heavy tanks with special rules. The new and cheaper Jagdtigers and King Tigers make heavy “medium” tanks like the Panther even more redundant. The Panther is stuck in a no mans land without enough armour to stop the big guns of Fireflys and Big Cats. The best bet for tank armies still seems to be to run either super heavy tanks with infantry support or a horde of medium tanks to win through weight of fire.

For now, this is all just conjecture. I was very happy to have the chance to paint a few Jagdtigers as I am unlikely to add them to my own collection any time soon. I’m interested to see if we will have any Jagdtiger lists at the next few tournaments in BC (Gottacon in February, Kelowna in April, WetCoast GT in the summer, and Attack-X in the fall). The appeal of a Jagdtiger list partly lies in how quickly it can be painted and put on the table. Our meta seems to be slow to adjust so we will see if they start popping up locally.

As always, thanks for visiting. Rust and the City has recently surpassed 300 follower. Thanks for your support. Visit again soon for some updates on my Panzergrenadiers (less than a month until Gottacon…), another Jagdtiger, and some tutorials. You can share your comments on the models and thoughts on how the Jagdtiger list will play in the comments below. Thanks for visiting.

If I ever move on to my Soviet project (Maybe in a year or two.... once the unpainted mountain is significantly reduced), then I will come back to your articles for applying winter camos. So flippin good.

Well done on the 300 mate - Spartans everywhere are shedding a tear for you.